Page:The Anglo-Saxon version of the story of Apollonius of Tyre.djvu/87

Rh exceedingly beautiful, and, for [24] her great love of purity, they all said that there was no Diana so estimable as she.

When Apollonius saw that, he with his son-in-law and with his daughter ran to her, and all fell at her feet, and thought that she was Diana the goddess, for her great brightness and beauty. The holy house was then opened, and the offerings were brought in, and Apollonius began then to speak and say: "I from childhood was named Apollonius, born in Tyre. When I came to full understanding, there was no art that was cultivated by kings or noblemen that I knew not. I interpreted the riddle of Antiochus the king, to the end that I might receive his daughter to wife; but he himself was associated with her in the foulest pollution, and then laid snares to slay me. When I fled from them, then I was wrecked at sea, and came to Cyrene; then Arcestrates the king received me with so great love, that I at last merited so that he gave me his own daughter to wife. She then went with me to receive my kingdom, and this my daughter, whom I, before thee, Diana, have present, gave birth to at sea, and resigned her spirit. I then clothed her with a royal robe, and, with gold and a letter, laid her in a coffin, that he who might find her should worthily bury her, and committed this my daughter to a most wicked man to support. I then journeyed to the land of Egypt fourteen years in mourning: when